Jesse Cromwell - The Smugglers’ World: Illicit Trade and Atlantic Communities in Eighteenth-Century Venezuela

A decade of work on this project has left me in debt, in one form or another, to just about everyone I have ever known. Here is my shabby attempt at repayment. I start by thanking the four people most responsible for this books existence. Ann Twinam, my dissertation supervisor, has been the rock of my professional life since I enrolled in her research seminar in the spring of 2006. The red-inked remains of my first chapter drafts represented tough love, encouragement, and even levity. She has been unwavering in her support of my work and my career. Mil gracias, Ann, for teaching me with good humor how to be a professional historian. Nadine Zimmerli has shepherded this manuscript from dissertation to book as my fearless editor. Her solutions are elegant and insightful. Whatever she is getting paid, it is not enough. Kris Lane and Christian Koot served as devoted peer reviewers of this book. I thank them for stress testing its contentions and for offering superb suggestions that greatly improved the final product. Any wayward arguments in the book are solely my fault.

My project received crucial funding and intellectual support from numerous organizations over the course of its development. The Graduate School, College of Liberal Arts, and Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin provided me with research and writing fellowships to conduct archival work in Venezuela, Spain, Colombia, and the United Kingdom and to finish writing my dissertation. I also had the pleasure of being a fellow at the Institute for Historical Studies (University of Texas at Austin). Likewise, grants from the College of Liberal Arts and the Arch Dalrymple III Department of History at the University of Mississippi enabled me to do follow-up research in Spain and attend academic conferences. A semester-long Alexander O. Vietor Memorial Fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library allowed me to consult new sources, write and revise important chapters of this book, and enjoy the scholarly kinship of that special place. I received generous travel grants to undertake research and / or present at fruitful seminars from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spains Ministry of Culture and United States Universities, the Summer Academy of Atlantic History, the Huntington Library, the Newberry Library, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, and the Johns Hopkins University Department of History. I thank The Americas for allowing me to republish portions of my article Illicit Ideologies: Moral Economies of Venezuelan Smuggling and Autonomy in the Rebellion of Juan Francisco de Len, 17491751, in this book.

My years spent in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin were hugely influential to the creation of this book. Jorge Caizares-Esguerra always pushed me to make broader connections with my research. He was and continues to be a fierce advocate for his students work. Julie Hardwick infused my writing with questions of consumer demand and early modern markets. She and Bob Olwell were important intellectual sounding boards and role models for maintaining proper work-life balance. Wisdom from Susan Deans-Smith, Virginia Garrard, Seth Garfield, Jonathan Brown, and Lina Del Castillo also helped shape my book. I found academic inspiration and warm friendship through an incredible cohort of fellow graduate students in the department, including Renata Keller, Cameron Strang, Chris Heaney, Cheasty Anderson, Jeff Parker, Mikki Brock, Laurie Wood, Juandrea Bates, Claudia Rueda, Kristie Flannery, Mara Jos Afanador-Llach, Dan Wold, Brian Jones, Chris Albi, Jen Eckel, and Takara Brunson.

For their kind and patient assistance with my research inquiries, I thank the staffs of the Archivo General de la Nacin (Venezuela), the Archivo General de Indias, the Archivo General de la Nacin (Colombia), the Academia Nacional de la Historia (Venezuela), the John Carter Brown Library, the Huntington Library, the British National Archives, the British Library, and the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection. On research trips, numerous archivists and fellow researchers aided my work. In Venezuela, I am indebted to Carol Prez, Jorge Isaac Flores, and Sebastin Navarro. In Spain, Pablo Maurio Chozas, Luis Emilio Calenda Roa, Esther Gonzlez, and Igor Prez Tostado made a stranger feel at home and helped me understand the ways of the AGI. In Colombia, I wish to thank the AGNs Mauricio Ballesteros Tovar and Fabio Castro Gonzlez in particular for their help. Ken Ward and Kim Nusco at the JCB are excellent archivists who became my friends.

The Arch Dalrymple III Department of History at the University of Mississippi has been a fine academic home to write and revise this book. My colleagues have been a support network, a broad base of experiential knowledge, and a cheerleading section when necessary. When my daughter was in the hospital, we did not cook for six weeks and, yet, the fridge overflowed with all their generosity. In particular, I wish to thank Darren Grem, Annie Twitty, Jarod Roll, Marc Lerner, Zachary Kagan Guthrie, Mikala Adams, Sheila Skemp, Paul Polgar, Deirdre Cooper Owens, Jessie Wilkerson, Doug Sullivan-Gonzlez, Oliver Dinius, Vivian Ibrahim, April Holm, Susan Gaunt Sterns, Rebecca Marchiel, Peter Thilly, Nicolas Trpanier, Jonathan Gienapp, and Kelly Brown Houston for personal and professional kindnesses. Here is a department that happily lunches together. What a rare blessing! My excellent chairs (Joe Ward, Noell Wilson, and Jeff Watt) have facilitated my research (and smoothed my path to tenure) in every way possible.